by Andrea Nicastro
A dramatic appeal on Facebook is attributed to the 36th brigade of the Ukrainian marines: “For more than a month we have been fighting without receiving supplies.” The Ukrainian army: “Links to the city’s defenses are solid”
FROM OUR SEND
DNIPRO “Today will be our last day of fighting. We’re running low on ammunition. The Marines of the 36th Bilinsky Brigade are entrusting their will to Facebook. Resistance in Mariupol — a city where there have been “tens of thousands of dead” according to President Zelenskyy — is waning, but not flagging.
The latest news about the war in Ukraine
The proRussian separatists announce that the port camps are in their hands. Three days ago, Russian forces managed to break through the connection between the sea and the large industrial area east of the Kalmius River, where the remnants of the Ukrainian resistance have settled. The port authorities would have been defeated today. This was claimed by the President of the selfproclaimed Donetsk Republic, Denis Puchilin.
However, the Marines embassy is geolocated by the industrial zone, perhaps the last remaining in Ukrainian hands. That, too, is at the limit of defense capability, but thanks to the “five levels of reinforced concrete tunnels a proRussian spokesman admits are still difficult to conquer”.
Along with the Marines, the Azov Battalion forces also stopped the encirclement of about 15,000 Russian soldiers. Three thousand men in all, perhaps fewer, certainly decimated by casualties. “We were attacked by bombs from planes, artillery, tanks and other firearms. We made a worthy defense by doing the impossible,” the Marines wrote.
Next to them, in the epic of this battle, the ultranationalist special forces of the Azov Brigade turned the reputation of neoNazis into heroes. Fortyseven days of battle with superior forces gave wings to their military legend. Not only in Ukraine does no one dare associate the name Azov with the neoNazi shadows of so many of its soldiers, but now the carnage has washed their name even abroad. It is another of the unforeseen and undesirable effects of Putin’s invasion: to rehabilitate the military formation tainted by the ideology of its members.
In Japan, the Azov battalion was not only removed from the list of “international terrorism” with an apology, but also proposed for a mention in the Bushido book, the code of the samurai. Azov threw a message online a few days ago: “We are fighting at the limits of human possibilities. The wounded are very numerous, but no one escapes the battle. We continue to inflict heavy casualties on the enemy. Tanks and armored vehicles continue to fall under our blows. Dozens of enemy soldiers were killed. We defend the city of Mariupol inch by inch.
Today, the Marines’ words are pretty much the same, only more desperate. “For more than a month we fought without receiving supplies, food, water, even drinking from puddles, and we died en masse. The wounded make up almost half of the station. Those who still have arms and legs appear on duty. Infantry and riflemen are almost all dead. Now for the shooting there are gunners, antiaircraft men, drivers, cooks and band musicians. Destiny for all of us now is death or imprisonment. But let’s fight ».
Kadyrov soldiers from Chechnya openly tell in the video that the city of Mariupol was bombed by the Russian military.
You can hear a scary woman scream? Natasha! Natashenka!? in the background, but after the shot the scream stops.#Russian war crimes pic.twitter.com/DaYyyTenfrOleksandra Matviichuk (@avalaina) April 11, 2022
The story of this month and a half of siege will have to be written from sources other than propaganda or selfpromotion, sources that cannot come from one page alone. However, there is no doubt that the fighting, in extreme environmental and wartime conditions, was bloody and incessant. For the soldiers, sure, but until a few days ago, when the withdrawal of the Ukrainian armed forces forced them to the port or to the industrial zone, so did civilians. Hundreds of thousands of Mariupol residents who could not or would not evacuate either the Ukrainian defenders or the Russian attackers from the combat zone.
Both Azov and the Marines are more or less secretly contentious with the chain of command stretching all the way to Kyiv. “Throughout the fighting period, we were provided with 50 122 caliber cartridges, some Nlaw antitank missiles, 20 mines and Elon Musk’s satellite communication system called Starlink. Without ammunition, we have no chance of defending ourselves. It was possible to bring provisions. There was also the possibility that the brigade was maneuvering to rejoin the bulk of the troops. We spoke to the supreme commander who promised to unlock the situation. We also spoke above where they guaranteed us a political and military solution to the stalemate ».
Feeling the end is near, you may write in anticipation: «We do not know what will happen, but we ask you to remember us. No matter how things develop, don’t speak badly of the Marines. The same tenor also in Azov’s communication. “We cannot believe that in a country of 44 million people it is not possible to assemble an assault group capable of breaking through the encirclement,” said commander Denis Procopenko.
Valery Zaluzhnij, CommanderinChief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, gives a different version. For him, “links with the Mariupol defense are regular and solid,” even if, as he explains as an excuse, what we do we do in secret. In his own words: “The Mariupol defense operations are not a subject of public debate.”
April 11, 2022 (Change April 11, 2022 | 18:54)
© REPRODUCTION RESERVED